The Stanley Hotel
Room 309
Estes Park, Colorado
August 14-15, 2011
Website
I have heard about The Stanley Hotel forever. It is basically the "go to" place for the numerous paranormal shows out there as well as paranormal investigation groups, famous or not. In 2011 after proposing to my now wife, I was trying to think of someplace to go for the honeymoon. I wasn't even thinking of a paranormal or haunted location, I was just trying to be creative. Somewhere along the way, I just came up with staying at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO. It is a beautiful, historic, and allegedly haunted. And once again, I have seen it on numerous shows. I bite the bullet and make reservations for two nights. I did not ask for a specific room such as 217 or 401, I just got whatever room was available, which in the end was fine.
After the 10-12 hour drive from Kansas City, we got checked in, walked around the place for a while just to get our bearings, and watched the unedited version of The Shining which repeats on Channel 42. We ate dinner at The Cascades and after getting more stuffed than expected, I decided to take a little nap. It was later that night and while I'm zonked out, Nikki hears footsteps in the hallway over and over. Now keep in mind that we aren't in a famously haunted part of the hotel, and not many known claims on the third floor. She goes to open the door and nobody there. This happened a few times, so she grabs her camera and takes random pictures down the hallway and by the staircase that leads up to the fourth floor. In a series of a few pictures, she get one picture with what looks like a double orb. No I'm not a ghost orb apologist by any means, but this was a really interesting picture. She tried to recreate the picture but couldn't. Also what makes this an interesting orb photo is that outside our room door is an old framed picture of some people sitting around the lobby by one of the fireplaces in the lobby, and right in the middle of the picture is a double orb. Weird? Coincidence? Maybe. After this she went back into the room and left the door open. When she went the grab the handle to close the door, the door slammed shut.
The next day was another interesting experience involving the door. I went out to the pool for a couple hours and did not take my keycard to the room. Nikki said she would stay back in the room and watch some TV until I got back. During this time, she tried to recreate the door closing incident from earlier that morning. I had the window closed so there would not have been a vacuum to close the door. With the overhead fan on and off, she still could not get the door to close. I finally come back to the room and went to get some ice for my bottle of OJ. While I am doing this, she hears the door handle jiggle and thinks that it is me since I did not have my keycard. She gets up to open the door thinking it is me jiggling it only to see me walking down the hallway back to the room from getting ice. There was nobody else in the hallway at the time to randomly jiggle door handles. So even though I wasn't there when it happened, I could see that nobody else was in the area to do this because our room is on a dead-end hallway and I am walking towards the room from the main hallway when she poked her head out and I saw me walking down the hallway to the room. She asked if I jiggled the door handle and I told her I didn't, and nobody else was in the hall.
The two days we were there, we would leave my voice recorder out on the dresser to see if we captured any EVPs. It was normally a couple hours each time when we went out for dinner or being on the Ghost Tour. Once we got back home, I was not planning on finding anything that would amaze me, but I was quite surprised at what I found. Sounds of a "swoosh" that sounded as if a piece of paper blew by the recorder, the sound of someone screaming, weird knocks and bangs, and quiet footsteps from inside the room. Very odd.
It was a good two days and what a way to start off our marriage. We definitely wanted to come back, and next time stay in Room 217 (the Stephen King Room) and Room 401 (the Lord Dunraven Room). Well, for our 5th anniversary, we did return and get those two rooms. More on that later.
